Chapter 163
At the Zenin clan’s training ground in the mountains behind the estate, Naoya and Kiriya stood facing each other across a vast open field.
This was where the clan’s core members usually practiced their techniques and sparred.
Naoya had wanted to settle the matter right at the front gate, but his father had forced him to move somewhere more appropriate.
He was clearly unhappy about it, though he had no choice but to obey.
Now, standing at one end of the field, Naoya brushed a strand of hair away from his forehead and looked at Kiriya with the confidence of someone who believed the world naturally revolved around him.
"Meeting me is the greatest misfortune of your life."
He smiled condescendingly.
"If you kneel and surrender now, I might consider sparing you."
"I’m serious. Someone as worthless as you isn’t even worth dirtying my hands over."
The malice in his eyes was completely undisguised.
Several Zenin clan members watching from the sidelines smirked.
There it was.
Naoya Zenin’s legendary mouth—the kind that made people want to shove the contents of a septic tank straight down his throat.
They had all suffered through his insults while living under the same roof.
But now that someone else was the target, they found themselves enjoying it.
Maki’s eyes turned cold.
She wanted nothing more than to smash that arrogant face into the ground herself.
"Relax."
Gojo sat nearby with one leg crossed over the other.
"Kiriya can handle him."
"Hahaha! You seem awfully confident in that boy, Gojo."
Naobito laughed from beside him.
"Of course I am."
Gojo turned toward the old clan head.
"Your son might have a rough day, old man."
"Mm."
Naobito took a drink from his gourd.
"An arrogant young man learning a painful lesson during a spar is better than being killed by an enemy later."
On the field, Kiriya listened to Naoya’s speech and suddenly covered his nose, his face twisting in disgust.
"Wow. What did you eat recently?"
He took a step back.
"Your breath is loud and foul enough to qualify as a public restroom."
Maki burst out laughing.
When the surrounding Zenin members glared at her, she laughed even harder.
Jinichi and the others felt their own mouths twitch.
Deep down, they found it satisfying.
But Naoya was representing the clan, so they had to preserve some dignity and hold it in.
"You’ve got a sharp tongue."
Naoya’s expression darkened.
"I’ll knock every tooth out of your mouth."
"You’re welcome to try."
Kiriya’s smile disappeared as the Sharingan awakened in his eyes.
Naoya’s heart gave a faint jolt.
’What are those?’
He had been told that Kiriya possessed neither cursed energy nor a cursed technique.
So what exactly were those strange red eyes?
A trace of unease surfaced within him, but he quickly crushed it.
It did not matter.
Projection Sorcery was invincible!
’Projection Sorcery—activate.’
Naoya shot forward.
His technique divided one second into twenty-four frames.
Using his own field of vision as a guide, he planned a sequence of movements in advance, then followed that path frame by frame.
The effect was extraordinary.
If his body could normally move one meter in a single frame, Projection Sorcery could stretch that to two, three, or even four.
Over a full second, he could easily cover more than fifty meters.
With cursed energy reinforcing his already impressive body, Naoya could even break the sound barrier.
That was Projection Sorcery’s greatest advantage.
Speed.
So much speed that an ordinary person could not even perceive his afterimage.
The technique also affected anyone or anything he touched. Once marked, the target had to follow the same twenty-four-frame rule.
If they failed to move according to the predetermined sequence, their body would freeze for one second.
Against someone moving at Naoya’s speed, that single second was essentially a death sentence.
Projection Sorcery had allowed him to dominate almost every member of his generation within the Zenin clan.
He could even defeat older Grade 1 sorcerers.
Naoya was arrogant, but his arrogance was not entirely baseless.
His plan was simple.
Close the distance, touch Kiriya, and turn him into a helpless puppet.
After that, Naoya could do whatever he wanted.
’What would look the most impressive?’
Ideas flooded his mind as he accelerated.
’I could pin his foot down and beat him with one hand. That would leave the other free to fix my hair. Calm, elegant, effortless.’
’Or I could slam him against a wall and unload a full combination.’
’And I absolutely need to kick him in the face. Something about that face annoys me.’
In the span of an instant, Naoya came up with one stylish humiliation after another.
He was quite pleased with himself.
Then he met those wine-red eyes.
"Hmph. Flashy but usele—"
The insult died in his throat.
His consciousness suddenly shifted.
Within his mind, his spiritual body had been pierced by countless metal stakes, leaving him completely unable to move.
Agony tore through him.
It felt as though the spikes had been driven into his bones and nerves, and Naoya screamed.
’What is this?’
No answer came.
The illusion lasted only an instant before his mind snapped back into his body.
But that instant was enough.
His planned movement had been disrupted.
Projection Sorcery judged the sequence a failure.
Naoya froze for one second and Kiriya’s fist was already pressed against his cheek!
Crack!
The impact caved in Naoya’s handsome face.
He heard the bones in his skull fracture as pain exploded through his head like countless needles.
The cry in his throat never escaped.
Kiriya’s fist crushed it back down.
BOOM!
Naoya slammed into the ground hard enough to create a crater in the stone.
Cracks spread outward in every direction.
At the center of the pit, his once-handsome face was almost unrecognizable, smeared with red, black, and brown like someone had overturned an entire shelf of sauces across it.
"What... just happened?"
Panda, Inumaki, and Maki blinked.
The battle had moved too quickly.
They had barely begun to tense up before Naoya was already on the ground.
He started.
Then he lost.
There was not much else to say!
"That’s impossible!"
The Zenin clan members were the ones who struggled most to accept it.
Their belief in cursed energy and innate techniques had been carved into their bones.
To them, sorcerers naturally stood above non-sorcerers, and powerful inherited techniques stood above weaker ones.
Projection Sorcery was one of the clan’s prized techniques.
Yet Naoya had been defeated instantly by a red-eyed young man with no cursed energy at all.
The absurdity of it left them speechless.
It was like watching a group of armed hunters surround a harmless rabbit—only for the rabbit to pick up a brick and flatten their leader in one swing.